In the summer of 2020 in the small western New York town of Perry, the serpent returned. It moved along the shore of Silver Lake, long as a football field some onlookers reckoned, fangs bared. Its eyes were flecked with gold, a hint of its previous deaths by fire, and of the future that awaited it. Residents gathered unafraid to watch it pass. This was, after all, the Silver Lake Serpent, arguably Perry’s most famous resident. In its most recent incarnation, the creature also known as the Sea Serpent—despite Wyoming…
